Why "10 times your income" isn't an answer
The most repeated rule in the business is to buy ten times your annual income. It's popular because it's easy to say, and it isn't useless — it usually lands you in roughly the right neighborhood. But it's a shortcut that ignores almost everything that actually determines the number.
Consider two people who both earn the same salary. One is 34, has a large mortgage, two children under six, and a spouse who works part-time. The other is 58, owns the house outright, has grown children, and a spouse with a pension. The rule of thumb hands them the same answer. Their families need wildly different things.
So use the multiple to sanity-check yourself at the end. Start somewhere better.
The four questions that set the number
Life insurance exists to answer one question: if your income stopped permanently tomorrow, what would your family need money for? Break that into four parts.
- What do you owe? Mortgage balance, car loans, credit cards, student loans, any business debt you've personally guaranteed. These don't disappear, and a surviving spouse shouldn't have to sell the house to clear them.
- How many years of income would they need? Not forever — until the household could realistically stand on its own. That might be until the youngest child finishes school, until a spouse re-establishes a career, or until retirement accounts become accessible.
- What do the children still cost? Years of raising them, plus whatever share of education you intend to cover. A four-year-old represents a much larger number than a seventeen-year-old.
- What would the end itself cost? Funeral and burial, medical bills, estate settlement costs. Modest next to the rest, but real, and the first bills to arrive.
Add those four. Then subtract what you'd already be leaving behind: savings, retirement accounts, existing coverage, and any income your spouse earns and would continue earning. The remainder is your gap — and the gap is what you're insuring, not your whole life.
The three mistakes that skew the number
1. Counting on employer coverage
Group life through work is genuinely good — it's usually cheap or free, and it requires no medical exam. But it's typically a modest multiple of salary, and it almost always ends when you leave the job. That's the problem: it vanishes at the exact moment you're changing employers, possibly older and in worse health than when you last qualified for anything. Count it, but treat it as a supplement rather than your foundation.
2. Insuring only the earner
If one parent stays home, it's easy to conclude they don't need coverage because they don't draw a salary. But the surviving parent would still need childcare, transportation, and household help — or would have to cut their own working hours to provide it. That's a real, ongoing cost, and coverage on a non-earning spouse is usually inexpensive precisely because it's so often overlooked.
3. Buying less coverage to afford a fancier policy
This is the most expensive mistake we see, and it usually happens with good intentions. Someone decides they want permanent coverage that builds cash value, discovers what it costs, and buys a smaller death benefit to fit the budget. The result is a sophisticated policy that wouldn't actually cover the mortgage.
If your need is temporary — the mortgage years, the kids-at-home years — term life insurance buys several times more death benefit per dollar. Get the amount right first. Then decide what type fits.
How long, not just how much
Amount is only half the decision. The other half is duration, and it's easier than it looks: match the term to the obligation you're protecting.
If your mortgage has twenty-two years left, a twenty-five or thirty-year term outlasts it. If your youngest is six, a twenty-year term carries them through college. When you're genuinely torn between two lengths, take the longer one — extending later means requalifying at an older age with whatever health you have then, and that's a risk you can remove today for a modest difference in premium.
If the need genuinely never ends — a lifelong dependent, estate liquidity, a business buy-sell agreement — then you're looking at permanent coverage, and our life insurance overview compares all five types side by side.
Want a second set of eyes on your number?
We'll walk through the math with you and show what that coverage would actually cost across carriers. Free, and no pressure to buy anything.
Get my free life insurance reviewWhen to run the numbers again
The right amount isn't permanent — it moves with your life. It's worth recalculating when you buy a home, have a child, get married or divorced, start a business, or take a significant change in income. It's also worth revisiting when a term policy is approaching its end, because your options narrow considerably once it expires.
Just as often the honest answer is that you need less than you did. A paid-off mortgage and grown children can mean the large policy you bought at 35 is doing more work than your family still needs at 60 — and a smaller final expense policy may cover what's actually left.
The short version
Add your debts, the years of income your family would need, what's left to raise and educate your children, and final costs. Subtract what you'd leave behind. Buy that amount, for as long as the obligation lasts. Check it against ten times income only to make sure you haven't wandered somewhere strange.
This article is general information, not insurance or financial advice. Your situation is specific to you — a licensed agent can walk through it with you, at no cost.
Availability and rules vary by state
Life insurance and annuity products, rates, riders and consumer protections differ by state, and a given product may not be available in every state. Honorbrook is licensed in the 11 states below; which products we can offer you depends on what carriers sell in your state. Each state’s insurance regulator can verify an agent’s license and answer consumer questions.
- Virginia: Virginia Bureau of Insurance
- Maryland: Maryland Insurance Administration
- North Carolina: North Carolina Department of Insurance
- South Carolina: South Carolina Department of Insurance
- Georgia: Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner
- Alabama: Alabama Department of Insurance
- Louisiana: Louisiana Department of Insurance
- Texas: Texas Department of Insurance
- Michigan: Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services
- Indiana: Indiana Department of Insurance
- West Virginia: West Virginia Offices of the Insurance Commissioner